Angus Council and Esports Scotland bring esports to primary education

1 June 2023

In terms of esports in the UK, it’s becoming more and more clear that the education system will be playing a major role in bringing the relatively new industry into the mainstream. The United Kingdom, in particularly, is one of the leading countries worldwide when it comes to creating a space for esports-related education at all levels. Recently, for example, we wrote a piece about the UK universities with most registered gamers and earlier this year, we told you about how the Montessori British School in Murcia recently became the first educational institution in Spain to offer a BTEC course in Esports. This time, we have moved the spotlight to Scotland, where the Angus Council, in collaboration with Esports Scotland, has launched the country’s first esports curriculum for primary schools.

Combination of gaming and skills building

Angus is a local government council area in the east of Scotland that is looking to lead the way in terms of esports in education. The local primary schools have teamed up not just with Esports Scotland, as mentioned above, but with Dundee and Angus College and the SSERC (Scottish Schools Education Research Centre) to develop a brand-new curriculum centred around esports and related subjects. The idea behind this initiative is to introduce children to esports at a young age, and to get them acquainted with the gaming basics, but also with important aspects like sportsmanship and teamwork.

Besides the purely esports-based parts of the new curriculum, there will also be a focus on more general skills, such as strategic thinking and communication. The program will contain various activities and interactive exercises to help the children build a broader range of skills that can be used both in the world of esports and outside of it. This will not only help the children to develop more skills, but also to better position esports education as a serious option for a student’s future.

“Esports Scotland is committed to growing and supporting the esports industry in Scotland”, says James Hood, CEO at Esports Scotland, “We have a large focus on education, and we are delighted to be able to support this initiative and bring esports to schools across the Angus area”.

Preparation for esports-related degree

The news from the Angus primary school comes a few months after Dundee and Angus College launched the first-ever esports degree in Scotland. Officially named the Esports and Creative Industries Art Foundation Degree, this is a two-to-three-year program that will teach students a wide variety of transferable skills, including event management, coaching and strategy, and sports psychology. By the end of the previously mentioned primary school esports curriculum, the young students will get the opportunity to connect with esports students from Dundee and Angus College, creating essentially a complete esports education program from primary school to college graduation. In creating such an ecosystem, Angus is quickly becoming a UK hub for esports in education.